Ughh...

So let me tell you a little bit about my day.

I had to go to the Prince George's County courthouse in Upper Marlboro to sit in on a case for a follow up story I did on the Glenarden city council. Upper Marlboro, for those of you who aren't familiar with Prince George's County, goes down as far south as Waldorf which is Charles County. So after getting stuck in traffic on I-695 and driving forever down MD-3 to get to Marlboro Pike and turn into Upper Marlboro, this courthouse is nowhere to be seen.

There are signs for the administration building, the library and all that, but not the courthouse. Not until driving down Main Street and thinking to turn around because I thought I went too far did I finally see the signs for the courthouse. I turn into the driveway and there are absolutely no available parking spaces in front of the courthouse, and the only level in the nearby parking garage for permit-free parking is the ground level. Every level except the bottom one in the garage was PERMIT PARKING ONLY. WTF.

After turning around five billion times, I called into the office to get some advice on where to park. The two editors I work the closest with at the paper hadn't made it to the office yet, so I ended up talking to the managing editor who was able to direct me to a parking lot next to the Upper Marlboro Volunteer Fire House.

I walk all the way down to the back entrance of the courthouse, only to have to turn around and go back to my car after a security officer tells me they don't allow cell phones. Grr. I drop my entire purse on the backseat floor and only take my reporter's notebook since I didn't want him or any other officer to give me any other reason to turn around and head back again.

Once I finally got inside, I had to navigate my way through the courthouse, trying to find the room the case was taking place in. The judge's names are on the door, and I knew the name of the judge presiding over the case, but I didn't see it anywhere on the doors of the first floor. I finally asked a security officer where I could find my case and he pointed me to a monitor displaying of today's cases and the courtroom numbers. If you've ever taken a train out of Union Station in D.C. or Penn Station in Baltimore, it looked like a digital list of trains coming in and those that already departed.

Well I kind of wish that monitor told me when cases departed, because by the time I found the room, of course the case had ended. I was able to flag down one of the defendants and an attorney to get some more information, but it wasn't quite the same as if I had been sitting in on the hearing :-(

I walked out of the courthouse feeling like life had completely rejected me. Even the first security guy who told me I had to turn around and put my cell phone back in my car dodged me as I walked toward him and ducked into an open side door. I had to find my way back to the office in Laurel (certainly not the way I came because that was long as hell but regrettably through Capital Beltway traffic) and do the one thing I was trying NOT to do because it took so damn long in last story I did on Glenarden: call everyone that was there and get their thoughts on the court decision. Making phone calls to people that may or may not want to talk to you is a waiting game that I dislike wholeheartedly, but I eventually got a hold of enough people to flesh it out into a decent story.

On a lighter note, one of my stories made it into the Washington Post today in the Prince George's County Extra section. It was story about this Catholic school teacher from Cheverly who won the county's Archdiocesan Teacher of the Year. I'm trying to get copies mailed to the school so he can pick them up there and give them to his friends that don't get the paper at home. You can read it here online if you like.

Okay time to get out of this microwave oven of a room.